


If Only it was My Time

by AllThingsEnd



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: I am a terrible person, Joe and Nicky, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Kidnapped Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Kink, Kinky torture, M/M, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, The Old Guard - Freeform, Torture, Torture Scene, Violence, Yusuf and Nicolo, he's all and he's more, merrick's lab, protective Joe, torture kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThingsEnd/pseuds/AllThingsEnd
Summary: If Andy, Booker, and Nile were somehow prevented from rescuing our boys in a timely manner. Days go by.I almost tagged this 'major character death' but like. Does that pertain, in this situation?I just got the translations from google translate, don't hate. I don't speak Italian. Yet.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 34
Kudos: 181





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not done. Idk how long it will be.

It had been three days.  
Merrick had chipped them, essentially collared them. With a push of a button, he or Dr. Kozak or Keane could have them zapped. It was not enough to knock them out, but it would send their eyes rolling and their knees crashing to the floor.  
As degrading and painful as this was, it allowed them some creature comforts Keane had at first refused them. But they could not do much damage before being zapped, so there was no harm in giving their leash some slack. They were put into a small room off the lab with two cots pushed into it. After two days of being strapped to the tables, pieces of them being sliced and carved and pulled out of them, they had been shuffled into this room and locked in. Naturally they spent a good while looking for a way out, even as Keane and some other men stood just outside watching them through the narrow glass window. Eventually they accepted there was no way out. Joe jumped and tore the camera out of one of the upper corners of the room, at which Keane flared his nostrils angrily but otherwise did nothing about.  
Soon enough, exhaustion overtook them. Their bodies could heal, but being tortured for nearly 48 hours straight still took its toll. Keane had left two guards in the lab proper to keep an eye on Nicky and Joe, but seeing as even if they could get out, the only way was through that room, they had relaxed and were no longer looking through the window. One sat on one of the tables inspecting his weapon, and the other leaned against a wall looking around the room.   
“Andy is coming,” Nicky said suddenly. He was sitting on one of the cots. Joe, glaring out the window, looked over at him. “Andy and Booker and Nile. They will come.”  
“I know.”  
“Joe, vieni. Riposo. Per favore.” (Joe, come. Rest. Please.) “There is nothing more we can do right now.”  
“You sleep. I’ll keep watch.”  
“For what? They will come back in the morning, and take us to the tables, and do more of what they have been doing.”  
“For Andy. We need to be ready to help when she gets here.”  
“And us being exhausted will not help her. Come.”  
Joe sighed, and left his watch at the door. They chose the cot furthest from the door, and laid down. Joe wrapped his arm around Nicky, who snuggled back into him.  
“At least we are together,” Nicky whispered.  
“Always,” Joe responded, letting himself smile into Nicky’s neck for a moment.

Joe was violently jerked awake by Nicky suddenly screaming and thrashing against him. He snapped awake, instantly ready to fight whatever threat was before them, and had about three seconds to piece it together. There were three guards in the room, one standing right over them, a long taser crackling and flashing white-blue, pressed into Nicky’s chest. Joe reached over him and grabbed the staff of the taser, wrenching it away from Nicky as the electricity ran up his arm and into his own chest. The guard withdrew the weapon as the others leveled their machine guns at the two men on the bed. Nicky took deep, pained breaths, and Joe grunted as aftershocks ran through his body, both of them glaring up at the guards.  
“Good morning, Nicky. Sleep well?”  
“Like a king.”  
“Alright, shut it. Up.” The guard with the taser gestured for them to return to the tables in the larger lab.   
“I kind of like it here,” Joe leered, immediately resulting in the taser being pressed hard into his side. He tensed and flailed, before Nicky swatted the taser away.  
“Okay, stop. We are coming.”  
“Just you,” they looked at the door. Kozak stood there. “Just that one,” she indicated Nicky. Joe looked between her and Nicky, who looked back at him.  
“No,”  
“You are easier to handle one at a time, and I want to take care with this today.”  
Joe stood up, helping Nicky to his feet.  
“I said no.”  
Kozak looked at one of the guards and nodded, and Joe and Nicky jumped as a gunshot suddenly echoed through the small room, and Joe gasped in pain, clutching at his stomach. Nicky looked down to see a stain of blood growing on his shirt, then turned on the guard with anger seething in his eyes. Before he could move, though, the guard with the taser plunged it into Joe’s fresh wound, and he fell with a shout, and the other guards grabbed Nicky and dragged him from the room.   
He thrashed, but Kozak reached into her pocket and withdrew a fob he recognized as the control for the chip in his neck, and he stopped. Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be strapped down to one of the surgical tables as the guards locked the room Joe was in back up.  
“I do not see why you fight so hard. It was a single gunshot. He is likely already fully healed.” Sure enough, a loud banging made them look to see Joe on his feet in the cell, hitting the window in the door.  
“I will kill you if you touch him again!” He shouted, voice muffled.  
“From all the way over there?” Kozak mocked, and returned her gaze to Nicky. She cut his shirt off with scissors, tearing the fabric away and casting it onto the floor.  
“That was my favorite shirt,” Nicky muttered, and was ignored.  
Kozak pulled a trolley toward them, laden with surgical knives.  
“Today,” she said calmly, before leveling her gaze into Nicky’s eyes, “I would like to see how far you can go.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Your first day here, you called me immoral.” Kozak talked as she prepped Nicky for whatever sadistic tests she had in mind, but Nicky did not respond. “Sometimes, a thing can be amoral. Is there truly a right or wrong here? You suffer, but the greater consequences can potentially help billions of people.” She clipped the heart monitor onto his finger, and pressed EKG patches onto his chest, along with various other sensors. “You know, if that day in Sudan had gone differently, you might not even be here now. The plan was to take samples from the scene, after you had gone. But you and your friends, you contaminated the scene beyond saving. It would have been impossible to separate your blood and tissue from that of the soldiers you murdered. Such violence… and for what? To change the world? No. That was all just for your own benefit.”

She might have kept talking, kept trying to convince herself what she was doing was acceptable. But Nicky tuned her out by looking at Joe. He nodded slightly, trying to tell Joe that it was alright. They had been through worse. It was alright. But the knowledge that they would get through this did not mean they wouldn’t suffer before that. They had watched each other die over and over, more than once at their own hand. They had watched the other being tortured before. And it was impossible every time. Their hearts still broke to see the other in pain, every time.

Nicky was snapped back to Kozak’s activity when he heard the scraping of metal on metal, and looked up to see her holding a large knife.

“You can heal, but what if the object is not removed? What will happen if I just,” and she plunged the blade into Nicky’s stomach. He shouted in pain, and Joe slapped at the door and screamed “NO!”   
“What if I just leave it in there?” Kozak continued. She had aimed for a non-lethal area; at least, not immediately lethal. She had missed all the vital organs on purpose. The strike was not meant to kill him, just wound him severely. And observe what would happen if he could not heal.

Nicky squeezed his eyes shut and rolled his head from side to side in pain. He could feel the wound trying to heal, trying to close, but all that succeeded in doing was to tighten around the blade, and subsequently be sliced open again. Over and over, his body was opening itself back up on the weapon. Blood pooled around the wound and ran off his stomach, dripping on to the ground. 

“Stop it! Take it out!” Joe shouted, ramming his shoulder into the door. The guards leveled their guns at him, but he did not stop. Kozak seemed completely unconcerned.

“Those doors are meant to contain a gaseous leak. They are airtight, and of the highest quality. He cannot get through. Which, as a matter of fact, gives me an idea.” She shook her head. “Later.” She returned her attention to Nicky, who was suppressing agonized grunts, face skewed in pain. She picked up another blade and inspected the available skin, before slowly pushing that blade into Nicky as well. His eyes flew open and he gasped, pulling in vain against his binds, sitting up off the table as much as they would allow. 

“Nicolo! Nicolo, guardami,” (look at me). Nicky obeyed, but just as they made eye contact across the room, Kozak changed her technique. She dragged the knife up, tearing through his body, watching in awe as the skin closed up behind the blade like a vanishing trail. Nicky clenched his teeth, and she twisted the blade, and he could not help it any longer, and he screamed. Encouraged by this, she forced the knife deeper into him, and she felt it pierce his stomach lining. His scream hitched as his body did its best to process this new pain, then petered out into mewling whimpers.

“I wonder how long you will last like this, before something gives in and you die. Perhaps it is the stomach acid that does it, or the blood loss. But for something like you, with the healing? This will be the first experiment. We won’t know until it happens.”

Nicky forced himself to look at her.  
“You think you are special,” he managed to mutter.

“No, I think I am lucky. I think you are special, and I am lucky to be the one to discover you.”

Nicky let out a curt laugh, and specks of blood flew from his mouth.  
“You are not discovering us. You are simply splashing at the edge of a sea you cannot swim in. This will never amount to anything more than spilt blood, and long after you have been buried we will be- agh!” Kozak ended his sentence in a cry of pain by slamming the heel of her hand into the end of one of the blades, driving it into his flesh to the hilt.

“Be a good lab mouse and bleed out in silence, will you?” She spun on her heel and stalked over to her desk, where she angrily typed at her keyboard.

Nicky’s breathing was thin and raspy. He looked toward Joe, who was pressed to the glass of the small window. Nicky forced a smile, but let it drop when he realized his bloody teeth would probably do nothing to comfort Joe. He could hear the dripping of his blood hitting the floor. Feel his tissue trying to draw itself closed only to be met with the blades that sliced it apart again. He was being stabbed over and over again, and the pain would not subside. This is not something a human being can become accustomed to, can learn to live with. He kept waiting for the pain to overtake him and to lose consciousness, but it never happened. There were no waves of pain, no waxing and waning, no slightly less agonizing moments to wait for between the peaks. It was like drowning – and he would know. Every moment was as bad as it could possibly be, and the next, and the next. It became so he couldn’t look at Joe anymore. He writhed, a desperate attempt to quell the torment with movement. Of course it did nothing.

Joe seldom felt so helpless. He pounded against the door, but to no end. He tried to look away, to return to the cot and think of anything but his love being in anguish, but it felt like he was abandoning Nicky, which he would never do. Never. So he could do nothing but watch as Nicky squirmed and sobbed dryly.  
“Andy is coming,” Joe whispered to himself. Andy is coming. And when she does, she would let Joe out, and he would reign hell onto Kozak.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been ten days. Or so. About ten. Maybe.

They had been moved to what they figured to be a subbasement. Out of sight, out of mind, until they were needed. When they had been moved, they were brought down on a freight elevator and led through corridors and a few laboratories, all showing no signs of ever having been used. They came to an impressive door, dead-bolted and locked, and noted that only Keane himself could unlock this door.

Inside was a narrow hallway. On the right wall were four cells, one after the other; on the left, a bench beneath a wall of levers and chains.

“Did you just, already have a dungeon?” Joe asked, both mocking and genuine. A guard whacked him over the head.

“It is a bit outdated, compared to the rest of the facility,” Nicky noted, and was met with the same discipline.

True, it did not feel like the same architect had built this room. But it was still equipped with all manner of modern conveniences. The chains on the wall were not rusted irons, but surgical steel, and each was connected to a crank. Joe took note of a camera in the corner opposite the cells, out of reach. Each cell door was again ID-card-activated, and equipped with a small version of what had sat beside each of the tables upstairs: a heart monitor, an EKG, a number of needles and tubes, and other such tools. Inside, each cell was very much like a modern prison cell. A cot, a small toilet and sink by the wall, and bare walls. A few chains dangled from the ceiling, these also disappearing into hatches.

Keane unlocked and opened each door, and Nicky and Joe were shoved into the separate cells.

“Is this truly necessary?” Nicky asked.

“Shut up.”

The shackles were unlocked from their ankles, the zipties were cut from their wrists, and they were locked in and left alone.

“Bastardi,” (bastards) Joe muttered.

After they were brought into the new cells, they were left along for nearly three days, except when a guard brought food twice a day. They pushed the cots to the wall their cells shared, so when they slept they could at least have their fingers twined together. They were worried about Andy and the others, and wondered what was keeping them. Nicky once offered the possibility that they had been captured, as well, and were being kept elsewhere, but quickly rescinded this. There were four cells here, one for each of them. And two remained empty. Andy and Booker (and Nile, unbeknownst to Merrick) were still out there.

They learned quickly that any attempt to tamper with the door resulted in a painful shock. So they talked, reminiscing on nearly one thousand years together, and planning the next millennia they would share. They played around with the chains on the ceiling, jumping to grab them and then doing pull-ups. The chains above them were the same as the ones on the opposite wall, for when they pulled on theirs, those on the wall would go taught and tug on the crank beneath them. They threw around guesses for what this was for. They had no way to tell time, so they used the mealtimes as markers. They teased the guard that would bring food to them, asking him increasingly personal questions each time he appeared. Of course, he answered none of them. 

“When did you lose your virginity, eh?” Nicky asked him one evening (they figured it was evening).

“Nicky, that’s not a question you just ask somebody,” Joe turned to the guard. “Sorry about him. What he meant was, have you lost your virginity?”

“Look at him, Joe, of course he has.”

The guard slid the paper plates under the slots in their doors.

“Why do they send you over and over?” Nicky asked, now genuine. “You the newest or something?” No response. “What is your name?”

“No, Nicky, you never name them. Then you get attached.”

The guard shot a dark look at Joe for this, but said nothing as he left.

They ate in silence.

“Maybe tomorrow something will happen,” Nicky wondered at length. Of course, these few days were nothing to them, but boredom is not necessarily something one can get used to. They pushed the empty plates out of their cells, and laid on their respective cots, facing each other. Nicky slid his hand through the bars and laced his fingers with Joe’s.

“Goodnight, my all and my more."

Joe snorted. "That was a good speech, don't make fun of it!"

"I loved it. I love you."

"I love you."


	4. Chapter 4

It is amazing how when something traumatic happens, it can make a moment feel like a minute. Alarms were blaring in Nicky’s head. He opened his eyes, eyebrows tight. An abstract pain sensation was bubbling up in his arm. Joe’s face came into focus, just on the other side of the bars. It had flecks of blood on it. This snapped Nicky fully awake, and with it came the full force of the pain, and then understanding. He screamed. In one fell swing, his hand had been completely severed from his arm, the offending guard still standing over him holding the axe. Nicky clutched the bleeding stump of his hand and sat up, tipping off the cot and crashing into another guard, who jumped back to avoid the blood. Joe shot upright in his own cot, his hand still touching the fingers of Nicky’s disjoined hand. He shouted, and dropped it as he reached for the rest of Nicky, but there were guards in his cell, as well, and they grabbed his arms and dragged him backward off his cot, away from the bars.

Nicky was panting raggedly, eyes closed in pain, but when he heard Joe struggling with the guards he jumped to his feet and shouldered the nearest man out of the way. He glanced at the cell door, but it was closed and locked. In case they managed to kill all the guards inside and escape, he figured. Wise of them. He turned to the other guard, who raised the axe again. Nicky lunged at him, ducking under the swing of the weapon, and uppercut the man with his good hand. The axe clattered to the floor, but had not even settled into its place before it was in Nicky’s hand, then in the guard’s neck. Blood spurted out onto him. He turned on the other guard, savagery in his eyes, but before he moved he heard Joe cry out in pain.

“Stop!” one of the guard’s on Joe shouted. Nicky looked over. Joe was on his knees, a guard holding each arm away from his side, a third standing over and behind him. This one held a length of rope, which was looped around Joe’s neck. Nicky scanned him for what had made him shout in pain, and saw one of the guards on his arms had wrenched his ring finger backwards, breaking it.

They all stood still for a moment, panting heavily. Except, of course, the guard Nicky had killed, who lay on the floor in a pool of blood that was slowly growing larger. Joe’s finger corrected itself, and Nicky felt his hand regrowing. It hurt something awful, but his face showed only anger as he looked at the guards.

“Drop the axe.”

Nicky flared his nostrils angrily, but the guard answered this by ripping Joe’s ring finger backwards again, the cracking of the bones mingling with his muffled shout. 

“Alright, stop!” Nicky dropped the axe. “Are you okay, Joe?”

“Am I okay?! Your hand is gone!” The guard on his other arm broke another finger. “Fuck!”

“Stop it! What do you want?”

“This.” Nicky and Joe turned toward the voice. Kozak, Merrick, and Keane stood just outside the bars, safely out of reach. It was Kozak who had spoken. She was looking wide-eyed at Nicky’s slowly regenerating hand, watching the osteoblasts remake the bones that had been lost, the tissue climbing up around them to sheath them in muscle and vein and flesh, the skin creep up and enclose it. “That… is amazing. I wondered what would happen if a part of you was completely removed.” She turned to Keane, and gestured to the dismembered hand on the floor. “Once they are done, I will need that hand.”

“What is this, what do you want?” Joe demanded.

“Simply more data, I-”

“You don’t need to answer them, you know.” Merrick cut in. “I know you would sometimes talk to the lab mice, to pass the hours or whatever. Feel free, of course, but you do not need to give them any reasons or answers. They will still argue with you, no matter how rational your response, and you will still conduct your tests.”

“Of course.”

“So. Carry on.”

Kozak nodded, and motioned to the guards. The One remaining in Nicky’s cell ordered him to put down the axe. Nicky glanced at Joe, got his answer, and turned on a dime and buried the axe one-handed into the guard’s head. Kozak gasped. Nicky let go, and the guard and axe collapsed to the floor as one. He turned toward Merrick and the doctor, eyes steely. 

Merrick seethed. “Fine! Now you get to stay in there with two bodies. The rest of you, get out of there. You’ve done what you went in there for.” 

The three guards holding Joe looked at each other.

“Take this rope with you and I’ll let you go without a fight.”

They paused, then the one in the middle removed the noose from Joe’s neck. Kozak sighed, and left the room. Joe kept his word, and although a number of other guards leveled their guns at Joe as they unlocked the door, the three guard exited his cell without incident. He was locked back in, and the room was cleared.

“I really hope they take these bodies away,” Nicky muttered, flexing his newly regrown hand. “Will start to smell.”

Joe looked at him and grinned for a moment. But the moment was cut short. The door to the room opened again with a beep and a click, and a gas grenade was thrown in. Joe scrambled to his feet as it exploded.

“I fucking hate gas,” Nicky whined, as he sat down. Joe banged on his cell door angrily, but then voluntarily sank to the floor as well. They looked at each other through the thickening smog as their vision blurred, and they both fell unconscious.


	5. Chapter 5

Nicky woke up first. He coughed and rolled from his stomach onto his side. His hands were bound behind his back, this time with legitimate handcuffs, not the zip-ties they had used before. His feet were shackled together. He noted the bodies of the two guards he had killed were gone, leaving behind dark red stains on the floor. He looked over toward Joe, expecting to see him in a similar predicament, but his heart skipped a beat.

Joe was on his side, facing away from Nicky, hands bound behind his back. But one of the chains from the ceiling reached down and wrapped around his neck, clamped into a makeshift noose. 

“Fanculo. Joe,” (fuck)  
No response.  
“Yusuf,”

A pit grew in his stomach at the thought of guards in Joe’s cell with him unconscious, manhandling him, aggresively securing the chain around his neck and then letting him fall back to the floor.

The door to the room opened and Kozak, Keane and a few guards paraded in.

“What is this?” Nicky demanded, getting to his feet. “How the fuck is this some kind of experiment? You know we don’t die, what could you possibly learn from this?! You have your tissue, your samples.”

One of the guards hit a button on some device he was holding, and the chip in Nicky’s neck sent sharp jolts of pain through his body, and he collapsed with a shout. He did not get a moment to catch his breath before Keane grabbed the device and pressed the button again, and did not let go. Nicky’s body spasmed, curling into a writhing ball as he sputtered and gasped. Every muscle in his body was working against him.

“You shouldn’t have killed my men.” Keane said, his voice low. At long last he released the button, and Nicky went limp, panting. He collected himself, sat up, inhaled deeply, and looked at Kozak.

“I see you have abandoned the pretext of doing this in the name of scientific advancement. Usually I think it is good to be embrace your true self, but I feel differently about sadists.”

“This is not sadism!” the doctor was taken aback. “This is-“

“Don’t honor him with an answer,” Keane ordered. Nicky leveled his gaze back at him, which Keane did not like. “And don’t you look at me like that,” and he smashed his thumb into the button, sending Nicky into another fit of thrashing, this time only for a few moments. In the seconds of silence following, Nicky’s panting was joined by coughing. Joe was waking up.

“Joe,” Nicky moved toward him a little. “Joe,”

“Nicky,” Joe muttered, and coughed again. He sat up, and assessed the situation. “Fuck.”

“Have you ever been hanged before?” Dr. Kozak asked.

“Excuse me?” Joe looked at her like she had just rudely interrupted a conversation.

“Don’t worry,” she addressed Nicky now. “You won’t be here to watch. We have another experiment for you.”

“You use the word ‘experiment’ very loosely,” Joe critiqued, but he was ignored.

"And what do you have planned for me, good doctor?" Nicky asked mockingly. Joe looked at him, then back at Kozak.

"The thing about you, if we kill you, you get back up. But if we hit you, you fall just like everybody else. Yes, you heal, but you still fall. I want to know what it takes to make you stay down. Not die, but..." she thought for a moment, searching for the word. "Like I said before. I want to see how far you can go. I want to know at what point dying would be better than what I can do to you."

"Nothing you can do to us is new." Nicky challenged her. "And nothing you can do to us will matter. We will get out of here, and we will keep living, and you will be gone."

“That does not change what I will do."

"No." Nicky's voice was remarkably calm. "But the result will always be the same." This gave Kozak pause, but only for a moment. She looked at Keane, and nodded.

“Meant to get you out before you woke up. Hard to predict the gas dosage for you lot.” Keane said, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corner of his mouth for a brief moment. He indicated two of the guards with him. “Get him out.”

Nicky began to stand up, getting ready to resist the guards, but Keane pressed the buzzer and Nicky cried out and collapsed, cracking his head against the floor.

Joe shouted and lunged at the bars. “Nicolo!” Nicky’s eyes fluttered, a small pool of blood flowing from beneath his hair.

“Well that makes things easier.” Keane himself unlocked Nicky’s cell. “Get him.” The two guards went in, each taking Nicky under an armpit so that he was facing the floor, head lolling, feet dragging. He moaned, and his wrists pulled at the cuffs for a moment, but that was all he could muster as they pulled him out of the cell.

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait, where are you taking him?” Joe did not receive an answer from anyone. He stood up and slammed his shoulder into the bars. “Where are you taking him?!”

“Shut him up,” Keane ordered, and a guard moved toward the cranks on the wall.

“What’s that, what are you doing?”

The guard turned a crank, and the chain around Joe’s neck began to retract into the ceiling. There was soon no slack, and the metal tightened around his neck and tugged at him. His breathing was tight, restricted. He lifted himself onto his tiptoes, glaring at the guard. He heard the door to the dungeon open, and his eyes flicked over to see Nicky being dragged through, a small drip trail behind him from blood that fell from his hair. 

“Stop it-“ Joe started, but the guard slammed the crank over, yanking him a few inches into the air, before releasing it. Joe crumpled to the ground coughing, looking up just in time to see the last of the guards disappearing through the door. “No!” His voice was hoarse. The door slammed shut, and Joe was alone. “Nicky! Don’t fucking touch him! NICKY!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic depiction of a hanging. I have a degree in forensic science so it’s pretty legit, I know what I’m talking about. You’ve been warned. (also sure I know it might be sad that somebody with an actual degree is writing fanfic but screw it)
> 
> Another Warning: Use of homophobic slurs

A few minutes felt like an eternity. Joe stared silently at the drops of Nicky’s blood on the floor.

Kozak and three of the men returned to Joe’s dungeon shortly.

“Where is Nicky?” he demanded, back on his feet. Unsurprisingly – and maddeningly – they ignored him. “Where is Nicolo?”

“I ask again,” Kozak turned to face him. “Have you ever been hanged before?”

“Where is Nicolo?”

“Down the hall. In a different room.”

“Not a lab?”

“Have you been hanged before?”

“I am a thousand fucking years old, yes I have been hanged!”

Kozak wrote that down.

Indeed, he had been hanged before. Quite a few times. In fact, they all had, aside from Nile. Yet. It was actually the way Booker died the first time. And each time, it was beyond agonizing. There were no words in any of the languages he knew to describe it. So while most of his mind was occupied with worry for Nicky, he was absolutely dreading what came next for him.

Two of the guards set up a video camera on a tripod, pointed at Joe. He looked up at the camera in the corner of the room with a raised eyebrow. 

“Y’know, that’s kind of messed up. You making money off these snuff films? Or are these for your personal collection?”

“Do you know how little research we have on hangings?” Kozak asked, passionate. “On the agonal process, on what happens to a human in that situation?”

“What?”

“You can give us blood and DNA. You can fill in gaps in history with first-hand accounts. And you can help us understand death in ways never before possible. We can study you dying, with no moral or ethical blowback, and then you can describe it from your perspective.”

“No moral- are you serious? Is that why we are in an underground dungeon and not in a legit research facility? This is wrong and you know it! And... you think I'm going to answer a questionnaire about my own murders?" He sputtered in disbelief. "No. Oh, and, WHERE IS NICKY?”

The guard at the crank pulled it a little, just enough so that the chains were pressing against Joe’s throat. A warning shot.

“Mister Al-Kaysani-”

“Oh please,”

“You can be part of a monumental breakthrough in forensic and medicinal sciences-”

“You’re a forensic scientist now?”

“I am a scientist. I serve the furthering of scientific knowledge.”

Joe couldn’t even look at her. He scowled at the ceiling, taking shallow breaths against the pressure of the chains. Kozak took this as defeat, and continued her speech.

“Most of what we know about hangings comes from fourteen taped cases. Only fourteen. You and your people could provide hundreds of new data points-”

“Don’t you come at me with that ‘you people’ stuff-“

“Recording?” She asked the guard on the camera.

“Yes”

“You can leave for this, if you would like. He poses no threat to me.” None of them left. Kozak opened the stopwatch on her phone and took out a handheld one, holding them next to each other. She looked back at the guard on the crank. “Ready.”

“Wait-“ Joe began, but then the crank was turned and the chain went taut. He gagged. Pain immediately exploded in his head as he was hauled off the floor, his feet desperately searching for purchase. He pulled on the bindings on his hands with everything he had, his shoulders bulging with the effort, but to no end. He struggled to take small gasps, each one pulling in less oxygen, each one failing to give him what he needed. His face burned. His feet still searched for the floor, desperate, hopeless, and of course found nothing. His vision blackened, but at this point, he was no longer even processing what he saw. Everything was pain. And then he lost consciousness.

“Eight seconds,” Kozak marked this down. “Dammit. We should have taken the cuffs off his wrists first. Next time.”

“Uh, is he meant to be doing that?” The guard on the crank pointed. Joe was convulsing, his body twitching and seizing.

“Thirteen seconds. Yes, that is normal. Keep him in the air.” 

Joe’s feet flexed, toes pointing down and slightly inward, and his shoulders lurched forward. His chest heaved in vain, his lungs empty, his brain devoid of fresh oxygen. 

It took just under four minutes for Joe to die. To the guards, it looked like four minutes of random thrashing and gasping. To Kozak, who was no pathologist but still knew the language, it was a goldmine. With this one video, they had already expanded the research pool exponentially. And she was not finished.

“Let him down,” Kozak ordered, and the guard released the crank, and Joe’s feet slammed hard into the ground before he crumpled to the floor. They watched in silence, waiting. 

The first thing to move was a finger. Then his eyelids twitched, but did not open. Joe’s lower lip quivered, then his mouth opened in a gasp. His eyes flew open, and his breathing steadied.

“Fuck, I’ll never get used to seeing that,” one of the guards muttered.

Joe pushed himself up to sit, taking deep breaths.

“Enjoy the show?” he needled, voice raspy. He was back. Recovered. Alive. As though it had never happened. Except the searing memory of the pain, and the knowledge that it was about to happen again.

\---

Nicky woke up in a different place. The last thing he remembered was seeing Joe in a noose, and then guards entering his cell…

“Joe?” No answer. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting. He was in a small room, more of a broom closet than a cell. Bare floor. The door was wood, but with a few heavy locks on it. There was a mirror. He stood and put his finger against the glass, and sighed. His fingertip and the reflection thereof touched. It was a two-way glass, a window from the other side.

“Bastardi. Where is Joe?” (bastards). He pressed his face to the glass and cupped his hands around his eyes, and could just barely make out an open space on the other side. It was shadowy and blurry, but he thought he saw movement. “Where is Joe?”

The glass suddenly rattled violently, and Nicky stumbled backwards. Somebody on the other side had hit it. 

“Any normal human would have a concussion or be dead, you freak.” A man said from the other side of the glass, voice slightly muffled. “Your fucking skull cracked open.”

“Yes, I know, I was there.” Nicky reached up and touched his hair. “Still have blood in my hair.” He put his hand on the glass, leaving a bloody partial handprint. “There you go, some more DNA. Where is Joe?”

“It’s you that we moved, the other freak is right where you left him.”

Nicky shot forward and slammed a fist into the glass. He could not see, but he was certain the man had jumped backwards.

“I did not leave him.” he hissed.

“Oh shit that’s right! You’re one of the faggots. I thought they were kidding when they said that, but shit.” The man laughed. “So are you the man or the woman?”

“Idiota.” (idiot). Nicky pulled back from the mirror. He looked around the room, and finding it completely bare, sat down on the floor in a corner beneath the mirror. He tried not to think about what was undoubtedly going to happen to Joe, or was happening at this very moment. Strangulation was not a fun way to go. He shook the thought out of his head, and scanned the room for weaknesses. A small vent on the ceiling, too small to fit through. Perhaps he could punch through the walls, but perhaps they were fortified with steel beams. The wooden door was an obvious crack in the defenses, which meant they would have guards there. He wondered why they moved him, if the cells or the lab were the most secure places.

Nicky sat in silence for maybe two hours. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, but was very much awake. He was listening. At one point, he heard a door nearby open and close, and then heard nothing for half an hour after that. He figured there was a camera on the other side of the glass, in the other room, but that it was now otherwise empty. He stood up and stretched, and tentatively peered into the other room, the same way as before. No movement. He wondered if it was night, and most of the guards were home. Sleeping, fucking, eating, watching tv. Which got him thinking about the last time he was with the others, when Joe and Booker turned the tv on to watch the game. Fuck. And then he got thinking about the attack, and about how there was a bang, gas, and then the van. And Joe. Sweet, beautiful, wonderful Joe. Of course they had been separated before, on some occasions for weeks at a time. But it did not make it easier, especially when there was no guaranteed return date. And when Joe was probably at this very moment in agony, either physically or in worrying about him.

“I’m okay, Joe.” Nicky whispered to nothing. “Sto arrivando.” (I am coming).

He went over to the door and pressed his ear against it. Nothing. He tapped it a few times. It was indeed wood, no metal inside. He took a deep breath, stepped back, and front kicked the door high, and hard. His foot went through the wood completely, out the other side, splinters flying. He pulled his foot back, the ragged edges scraping his skin a little. He peered through the hole, saw nothing, so he reached through and began fumbling for the locks.

His head was screaming that this was too easy, that something was wrong. But what was he to do? Return to the corner and just leave the broken door there to mock him? He had to try.

He slid the bolts open, turned the lock, and unstrung the chain lock. It was weird, this room felt so thrown-together, so elementary, compared to the high tech lab upstairs, and the military grade dungeon.

He opened the door and looked both ways. He was in the middle of a hallway, one of a few doors. It was clear, so he stepped out. Before moving on, he pried a loose shard off the door and held it like a dagger. It would do. As long as he struck somewhere with no armor, it could do some real damage.

Nicky picked a direction and crept toward the corner. He took a deep breath, and jumped out. Nothing. Weird. He made toward the next corner, and jumped out. Guards. They were just as ready for him as he was for them. He caught a punch and plunged his makeshift dagger into the thigh of the first attacker. The man screamed as he fell, and Nicky stepped on his kneeling leg and launched himself onto the next guard. He tackled him to the floor and ripped off his helmet, sending punches into his face. Blood was on his knuckles. There were two more guards in front of him. But it was the one that came from behind that he should have worried about. He sent six bullets into Nicky’s back, surprising him as much as hurting him. Nicky jerked up, arms out, back arched, and stayed there for a moment, as if the world had been put into slow motion. Then he collapsed.

He woke up back in the room. No, it was a different room. The door was whole. And metal. But other than that, it was identical. He could feel the bullet wounds just finishing healing up, so only moments had passed. He scrambled to his feet, but stopped there. Keane stood in the doorway, a grenade launcher leveled right at Nicky’s chest.

“Oh,” was all he could think to say.

“’Oh’ is right, motherfucker.”

“That will do.” Kozak’s voice came from the other side of the glass. Keane looked Nicky up and down once more, seething, then backed out of the room. Nicky lunged at the door, but Keane had it closed and locked too quickly.

“Take me back to Joe!” He slapped the door and shouted.

“The nature of this experiment requires isolation.”

“What are you doing now?” He leaned against the door and looked at the mirror, but of course all he could see from here was himself. There were six bullet holes in his shirt that had not been there before.

“Oh that’s just it. We aren’t going to do anything. We are just going to leave you here.”

Nicky paused. “What?”

“Like you said before. We have our tissue, our samples. And we know you can heal from injuries, both nonlethal and lethal. But I wonder what your body does when it meets danger that is not a form of physical trauma. We can’t let you back out into the world. You know too much, and you would be an asset in the hands of our competitors. So we might as well use you to learn something while you are here. See how, or if, you heal from dehydration, from starvation.”

“You-“

“Alright, let’s go.”

“Wait, you-“ He heard the door on the other side of the glass open, and rushed forward, looking into the other room. Shadowy figures were indeed leaving. “You think I have never starved to death before?!” He challenged.

The second to last figure in the doorway stopped, and looked back. When it spoke, it was Kozak.

“I wondered if you had, but then I realized. It doesn’t matter if you have or not. No interview could provide for me the data I will get from watching it actually happen. I will be back to check in.” She left.

The last figure moved quickly and hit the glass with the butt of his gun, and Nicky backed up.

“Settle in, faggot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact that actually is how Booker died the first time, by being hanged. Its in the comics. He was hanged as a traitor for trying to desert Napoleon's army (because Napoleon was being dumb and led them into the Russian winter, and they were all freezing or starving to death anyway).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: brief mention/description of r*pe

They hanged him four times that day, until one of the guards vomited and Kozak decided she had enough for now anyway. They left, another man came in to hastily clean the mess, and then Joe was, once again, alone.

Days passed before anyone came in, aside from the one young man who brought them food. Him. Who brought HIM food. Nicky’s absence was a constant, haunting presence. And Joe’s sickening worry about him was an eternal companion. He could not help but be reminded of some of the most gruesome ways he had seen his love die, and imagining ways he could be dying now. Joe found himself sitting on the floor in front of his cot, the heels of his hands pressed hard into his eyes, trying to rub the images out of his mind. Nicky being whipped to shreds, Nicky being set on fire, Nicky being raped and strangled until the other man was suddenly having his way with a corpse. This last one hit Joe like a ton of bricks, and he slapped himself across the face in an attempt to rid himself of the memory.

There had to be a way out. There had to. This was just a building. Just a cell. Just walls and a door. He was a fucking immortal, how could he be stopped by this? This building would be a pile of rubble when Joe would still be walking the earth, Nicolo by his side. Fuck this insignificant building. Fuck Kozak and Merrick and Keane and the whole lot of them. He would get out. No matter what. Whatever it takes.

Joe stood up quickly, wiped clear tears from the brims of his eyes, and set to examining every nanometer of the cell door. He and Nicky had long ago discovered that any attempt to tamper with the lock led to a deep shock, so harsh it echoed around the room. Joe tried it again. He took a deep breath, shook his hands out, and tried again. He could have handled the pain, but the physical, visceral reaction of his body was to jump back instantly. He couldn’t possibly keep his hands on the lock long enough to do any damage to it.

Okay. Fine. So the lock was not an option. The bars? He could dislocate his shoulder to be able to reach further… and then what? Even if he could reach the far wall – which he knew, logically, he wouldn’t be able to – it was not like there was a key ring hanging there. But there were the chains… The chains that were connected to the ceiling of his cell…

He looked up. Obviously the chain had to run through a tunnel or shaft or duct of some kind that went through the ceiling. Maybe he could use this opening as a weakness, and destroy enough of the ceiling around it so that he might fit. He jumped and tried to grab the side of the opening the chain dangled from, but there was no edge to grip and his fingers slid off the metal as he fell back down. He jumped again, this time grabbing the chain itself and hoisting himself as high as he could go. He peered up into the opening, then reached one of his arms up into it, the other still gripping the chain. The small tunnel went a few inches up before taking a turn in the direction of the far wall. He bent his arm to follow the curve, but it was too sharp a turn to accommodate him, and he couldn’t get more than his forearm in. It was also made of steel. He could work on it until his fingers broke, then again and again, and it would never budge. So that was not an option either.

The walls were solid. He kicked it so hard his foot broke with a sickening crack. He then tried a more subtle approach, tapping every couple inches to see if there was an echo that might indicate a hollow back or a thinner section wall. Nothing. He tried to think like the others. What would Nicky or Andy or Booker do? Or Nile? What would a soldier do in this situation? How would they get out?

Except that’s the thing. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Not on their own. He was out of allies. Now it was time to use the enemy.

_

Nicky was in pain. He sat huddled in the corner of the room, clutching at his stomach, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. His entire torso hurt; stomach, chest, throat. His head rang like a church bell. What he had shouted to Kozak had been true, he had starved to death before. He was pretty sure they all had. But these tedious facts did not make the moment any less dire. He was still alone in a room with no natural light, only a dim bulb on the ceiling. No windows. No company. No way to tell if or when somebody was watching him. The room stank of feces and urine, for it truly was just a barren square, the door and mirror the only indicators of direction. There was no toilet or sink, no bed, nothing. He did not know how long it had been, but he knew at least four days. At first, he had thought back on the last time he had been deprived of food and water, comparing then to now as a way to keep track of time, and a way to remind himself that it could be worse. Until he realized that it was going to be worse.

Every once in a while, he thought he could hear the door open in the adjacent room, or thought he heard muffled voices or the clacking of keys. But after the first few days, he had stopped trying to peer through the glass. He was too dizzy, and eventually had accepted that it did not matter if anyone was there or not. He was still alone.


	8. Chapter 8

Joe watched the guard bring his food. Watched him slide it under the door. It would have been easy to grab the man, who had grown less careful over the time he had been feeding the prisoner. The first few times, he had kicked the dishes from a few feet away, sometimes launching food off, or making the men get on their bellies and reach for it if they wanted to eat. Now he would come up to the cell door, bend down, and slide it under with his hand. He made himself an easy target. Joe could lunge at him, grab his wrist, break his arm backwards against the door and pull his face into the metal. The man would go for his gun, but Joe would be able to reach through the bars and get that far shoulder, and he knew well how to disable a man from that position.

But it would do him no good. Even if he had a prisoner, there would be no ransom. Keane and Merrick had watched he and Nicky kill at least a half dozen men, and he couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of what Andy had done when they had come after her. One man was nothing to them, to the glorious pursuits of science that they thought they were on. That was Merrick and Kozak’s excuse. Plus Merrick was a sadist. Keane just hated them enough to be willing to sacrifice his own men. 

Which meant he had to get one of those three. No, one of those two. Even if he got Keane, which would be the hardest to pull off, he was just muscle. He could be replaced. Merrick was quite literally the name and face of the company, and had everyone else in the building at his beck and call. He would be a good prisoner. And doctors which such particular knowledge and loose morals as Kozak couldn’t be a dime a dozen. She, too, could work.

It was few more days before they reappeared. 

“And how is this lab mouse today?” Merrick was looking at Joe as they walked in, but was obviously asking Kozak. Joe answered anyway.

“Oh I am doing just fine, you?”

“He has had a few days break,” Kozak responded. “We have been focusing on the other one.”

Joe stood up. “What did you do to Nicky?”

“Nothing.” Kozak answered flatly, before returning her attention to Merrick. “Mister Merrick, we-“

“Where is Nicky?!” Joe demanded, advancing on the cell door. Merrick looked at him, up and down, taking him in. 

“Zap him,” Merrick said, and Keane happily pressed the button on the remote. Joe grunted and fell to his knees. He caught his breath, and got back to his feet, staring defiantly at Merrick. There was a moment of quiet as they looked at each other, sizing each other up.

He hated the sight of them, wanted to piss them off so they left. But if Kozak was here, especially if all three were here, they couldn’t be hurting Nicky. Or so he thought. He did not know that Nicky’s agony was constant, was savage and pure whether or not the good doctor was there. 

“How do you see this ending?” Joe asked, hoping to pull them into a debate, prevent them from leaving. “How could this possibly go in your favor?”

Merrick chuckled. “So far it is going exactly in my favor.”

“And then what? Hmm?”

“Then I get rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

“My wildest dreams aren’t about money, I assure you.”

“Fine. Beyond my wildest dreams.” Merrick tilted his head mockingly and took a step closer to the cell door. “You are the key to everything. You and your little gang.”

Joe judged the distance between them. About five feet, the cell door about halfway between. Too far. He looked over at Kozak, hoping ignoring Merrick would draw him closer. “And how is that going for you, Doctor?”

Kozak looked at Joe, then at Merrick, and back at Joe. She said nothing.

“It’s not working, is it?” Joe challenged. “Your tests, your experiments, your torture. Put us under a microscope, and we look the exact same as everyone else. You just can’t figure it out, can you?”

Merrick looked back at Kozak coldly, then returned his gaze to Joe. He was angry now.

“There is no limit to what we will do to crack your code. No limit to how long it might take.”

Joe crossed his arms and leaned his head back casually, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a sarcastic smile. “Cancer drug, my ass. You want to live forever. You think you can inject some serum of our DNA into your scrawny arms, and be like us. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Merrick’s nostrils flared and he stepped forward. “You are immortal and you waste it! You squat in abandoned churches, you skim the perimeter of history. You could be everything! I will be a god!”

“You’re doing well so far. ‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.’” Joe quoted. “’They kill us for their sport.’” Merrick’s eyebrows twitched together in confusion. “Lear?” Joe parodied. “Shakespeare?”

Merrick’s anger boiled over the edge. He opened his mouth to shout, then just spun on his heel and snatched the remote from Keane. Joe only had a moment to curse inwardly, having driven Merrick away rather than closer, before the chip in his neck went off. His legs gave out and he fell to his hands and knees with a shout, every muscle in his body taut in protest. Through gritted teeth he seethed, and Merrick did not let go. His left arm gave out and he crashed onto his side, writhing and twitching and spitting.

“You insect!” Merrick shouted. “You think yourself above me! I will keep you here forever, I will keep you and the other one apart for the rest of time! Only two floors apart and yet utterly separate, and nothing you can do about it. You can heal from wounds, but not that. He will be alone and in pain as long as this bloody building has my name on it!” At last he released the button, and Joe went completely limp. After a moment his chest swelled in a ragged breath. His lungs felt like they were full of barbed wire, every muscle in his body burned. He dared not try to stand quite yet, but slowly looked up at Merrick.

“I will kill you,” he said simply, quietly, then looked at Kozak. “And you.” Then to Keane, who smirked. “And you.”

“Good luck with that,” Merrick jeered. He looked at Joe for a few more moments, nodded, then jerked his head toward the main door. A guard opened it, and they began to shuffle out.

Joe thought fast. It could be ages before they came back. He needed to do this now. He moved so quickly even Keane didn’t see it until it was too late. He rolled toward the cell door and stuck his arm through the bars, reaching as far as he could, and just managed to grab the hem of Kozak’s pants. She tripped and fell, breaking her nose against the floor with a muffled cry. Two bullets dug into Joe’s back, but he managed to drag Kozak towards him until he had a proper grip on her, his arms through the bars and with one looped around her neck. He squirmed to his knees and got a proper choke hold on her. She clawed at his forearm in vain. Keane dared not shoot again for fear of hitting the doctor. They were at an impasse. 

“Open the fucking door,” Joe said slowly, “or she’s dead inside of three seconds.”

Neither Merrick nor Keane moved. The other guards in the room stood behind them like statues, guns aimed but fingers off the triggers. The main door had closed again when the guard let it go to get his gun up.

“Well?” Joe demanded. Merrick kept his eyes on Joe but turned his head slightly toward Keane.

“Keane. Let him out.”

“Sir-“

“Do it, Keane!” He held his hands up toward Joe, as if trying to talking down a wild animal. “Easy. We’re opening the door. Now, Keane!”

“Surely there are other doctors-“ Keane started, at which Kozak gaped at him in shock and disbelief.

“Keane, open the fucking door.”

Reluctantly, Keane obeyed. He pulled the keys from a pocket in his Kevlar vest and slowly unlocked the door, glaring death into Joe’s eyes all the while. Joe flashed him a close-mouthed smile, dripping with mock sincerity.

“Now what?” Keane tested. “You’ll have to let her go to get out.”

Joe had planned on thinking about that when he got there. And now he was there. And had no idea. If he killed Kozak, his leverage was gone, and they would pump him so full of lead he’d be down long enough for them to lock the cell door again. He opened his mouth, no doubt with some rude comeback, but a click sounded and the main door swung wide. Everyone’s eyes whipped around to see the newcomer. The guard nearest the door suddenly dropped like a stone, and the other two guns in the room switched aim, pointing at the door. 

It was Andy. Andy in her full glory, lined with streaks of blood, hair covering half of her face, her ancient battle axe still in the neck of the guard. She kicked the man, pulling her axe from him, and assessed the room.

“Hey, Joe,”

“Hey, boss.”

“If I knew you had the situation so well handled, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Oh, well, you took your time.”

“Keane,” Merrick said in a half whisper. “Bloody shoot her!” Andy’s eyes flicked to him, and she grinned.

A gun went off, and Andy jerked forward. There were more guards behind her. Chaos erupted. Joe jerked his arm, and felt Kozak’s neck break. He threw down her body, pulled himself to his feet, and flung himself out of the cell onto Kozak. They fell together to the floor as Andy swung the axe behind her and toppled the first man who was entering the room from outside. More swarmed in, turning the small space into a melée. A guard appeared over Joe and shot him point-blank in the side of the head, sending him flying off of Keane. He was back within seconds, but Keane was gone, and he was wrapped in conflict with a number of random guards. He took the gun from one and shot down two more, took a bullet to the shin and dropped to his knee as he downed the offending man. He stood up, using the force to uppercut the nearest man, who died on Andy's axe a moment later. Then it was just the two of them. And a mess of bodies. He scanned the room, but Keane and Merrick were not among them. Somehow they had gotten out. His eyes lingered on Kozak’s body for a moment, but not at all in regret. His mind went back to when he and Nicky had still been in the lab, strapped to the tables, and he saw Kozak plunging the surgical knives into Nicky’s belly. Anger swelled briefly in him, but he looked hard at the body. She was dead. He had kept his promise.

He quietly checked the magazine of his stolen gun. Andy watched him. Finally Joe spoke.

“What took you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Andy…” he trailed off. He had no idea what had taken Andy so fucking long to appear, but knowing her, she had a damn good reason.

“Where is Nicky?”

“I don’t know. In the building. Two floors either up or down, I think.”

“Are you okay?”

“Always, boss.”

Andy nodded. She picked a gun up off the floor. They both pocketed extra clips.

“Time to get our man back,” Andy grinned. “Let’s go get Nicky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, in the original comics Joe did indeed kill the doctor by breaking their neck.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do believe this is the final chapter.  
> FYI: Andy is still immortal. She is immortal through the end of the first book, so I am going with that.

Joe and Andy stepped over the bodies of the guards and, for the first time in who knows how long, Joe walked out of that little dungeon room.

“How long?” He asked Andy.

“About two months.” She answered very matter of factly, not even looking over her shoulder. Joe knew it was because it broke her heart to have to admit that.

Joe kept walking, too, but felt his heart skip a beat. Two months. Shit, he really had lost track of time. That meant… actually he had no idea if he and Nicky had been together or apart for longer. Nicky could have been taken a week ago, or maybe three. With no natural light, no regular meal schedule, no device with which to keep time, and absolutely no stimuli except repeated death… He clenched his jaw. It didn’t matter how long it had been. All that mattered was that he was about to get Nicky back.

“The others?” He asked.

“Here.” Andy led him into a large room with steel lab benches everywhere. Booker and Nile stood at the other end, surrounded by bodies. Nile was poking at a gaping wound in her thigh, face a mix of disgust and curiosity. Booker was watching her, then said simply, “Don’t touch it.”

“Book. Nile.” They looked up when Andy said their names. At the sight of Joe, Booker looked relieved, and Nile physically relaxed.

“Thank god,” she said, then “Where’s Nicky?”

“We’re going to get him. Right now. And then we get Merrick.” Joe was happy to see them, but the reunion could wait for when they were ALL together. “Nicky’s in a room, a few floors off where we are now. That’s all I know.”

“They know we will be heading to Nicky, I bet they took Merrick somewhere else to protect him” Booker suggested. “Maybe he’s out of the building.”

“No,” Andy disagreed. “Penthouse.” 

“But first Nicky,” Joe repeated.

Andy nodded firmly.

Nile was watching Joe. He figured she was probably trying to see if he was okay… she had never experienced one of them being held like this before. Her mind was probably reeling, wondering what the hell he could have gone through, while at the same time not wanting to know. To be fair, Joe did look a mess. His clothes were bloody and tattered, his hair was longer and even more unruly than usual, and he had a savage look in his eyes.

The others had been through it. Andy, during the witch trials, but countless other times. Nicky and Joe, they had each been captured and tortured at least a half dozen times. Booker was the only one who had never gotten the full experience. He had been kidnapped, and he had been tortured, but never like this. The longest Joe could remember Booker being in enemy hands was one night, and they had gotten him back the next day. Maybe that’s why he was acting so strange, avoiding Joe’s eyes. In fact, he wasn’t making eye contact with any of them.

“Stairs are back this way,” Nile turned and led the way. The wound in her thigh had healed. By the time they got to the door to the stairwell, Andy was in front. She looked back at Joe, who took a blind guess.

“Down,”

They met no resistance on the stairs. Booker mumbled something about “don’t like this” but nobody else said anything.

When they had descended two floors, they took positions around the door. Booker and Joe took the flanks, guns pointed out, ready to defend if anyone came from a floor above or below. Andy and Nile squared up to the door, nodded at each other, and Nile turned the handle and pushed the door open. Andy went through first, gun up, and was immediately firing. The rest followed her in, saw the score of guards, and joined in the volley. 

Nile sniped the guards that were furthest away, and the other three went after those nearest. Joe shouldered one toward Andy, who sliced him in two with her axe. Joe and Booker both sent bullets into the same man, then simultaneously took down the two that took his place. One got too close to Book, and he disarmed him and shot him with his own gun. Andy kicked another in the chest so hard he went reeling backwards, right into Joe, who grabbed him and snapped his neck with ease. Andy took a bullet to the stomach, but buried her axe in the offending guard’s head right away. Her wound was healed before he died. There was one left. Nile leveled her weapon to shoot, but Joe jumped between them.

“Wait!” Nile paused. Joe turned on the man, who panicked and shot Joe in the chest twice. He took the bullets with little more than a jerk backwards. He stepped in close, grabbed the gun, and threw it behind him. It skidded across the floor to land by Nile. The guard pulled a baton from his gear, but Joe snatched that out of his hands and snapped it over his knee.

Nile and Booker glanced at each other. Joe was not attacking at all, just driving this man backwards, cornering him.

The man produced a knife and aimed for Joe’s neck. He blocked with his forearm, and the blade sank into his flesh. The man was out of options. He threw a few punches, which Joe deflected with ease. Finally Joe took a swing, so hard across the man’s face that they could all but hear his brain rattle. The man had run out of space, and he backed into the wall.

“Where is Nicky?” Joe’s voice was low and calm.

The man hesitated, and Joe persuaded him by darting his hand out and clamping it around the man’s neck. He lifted the man a few inches off the floor before dropping him again.

“Where is Nicky? The other man you’ve been keeping locked up here.”

The man was coughing, unable to answer.

“WHERE?” Joe bellowed, so loud and sudden that the man jumped.

“Through the last door,” the man managed. “Down the hall, one of those doors-“ 

“Thank you.” In one swift movement, Joe ripped the knife from his own forearm and plunged it into the man’s neck. The man gasped, sputtered blood onto Joe’s face, and died. Joe pulled the knife out and did not even look back at his team before he headed toward Nicky.

There were about a handful of guards in this hallway, but none of them lasted long. The first few doors Joe kicked open were closets or utility rooms of some kind. Then he knew he had found the right one. This one was locked, key card access only. They rooted through the guards’ pockets until they found one. The moment the door opened, they were hit with a smell so strong it was a physical, solid thing. Joe’s eyes watered.

The room was so dark, it took Joe a moment to find him. Nicky was in the far corner. He was small, laying on his side, half curled into a ball. Joe crossed the room in two steps, and slid an arm under his legs, the other behind his shoulders. He lifted him with ease, and the image of the last time he had held him like this flashed through his mind. Very different circumstances, so different the memory hardly felt real.

Joe staggered out of the room, and fell to his knees a few steps away from the door. Nicky was far lighter than he should have been, it wasn’t the weight that brought Joe down. Not the physical weight, at least. He cradled Nicky’s head and examined him, eyes glistening, lips parted. The others stood back and watched.

Nicky’s face was sallow, cheeks sunken, lips dry and cracked. His hair was longer than it had been in years, his face lightly bearded. His shirt hung loosely off of him.

Joe carefully touched Nicky’s face.

“Nicolo,” he whispered. “Nicolo,” Nicky’s eyes weakly flickered open.

“Yusuf,” his voice was nearly inaudible, his lips barely moving.

“Sono qui,” (I’m here).

Nicky struggled to keep his eyes open. He touched the hand Joe had on his face, fingers shaking.

“Per favore” (please), he said, looking into Joe’s eyes. “I’m no good like this.”

Joe closed his eyes, a tear dripping from his lashes. “Fuck,” he whispered harshly, then looked back at Nicky, who nodded ever so slightly. Joe took up the knife he had used to kill the guard, and all the while looking into Nicky’s eyes, he skillfully pushed it into Nicky’s heart.

Nicky’s eyes twitching in pain for half a moment, then his hand fell to the ground and he exhaled quietly.

The moments that followed were excruciating. Nobody moved. Joe held his breath. He had looked into Nicky’s dead eyes before, and more than once he had been the one to kill him. But it had been a very long time.

Nothing happened. Joe, eye’s stiff, leaned forward and pressed his forehead into Nicky’s, muttering something none of the others could hear. His one hand was behind Nicky’s head, fingers in his hair, and the other was on his chest, gripping a handful of his shirt. 

Nile clapped a hand over her mouth.

Joe rocked back and forth, pulling Nicky in closer. Not like this. Not like this. Not by his hand. Not like this.

The air moved against Joe’s cheek. He pulled his head back sharply, mouth open, not daring to believe. But when he saw Nicky’s eyes, he saw they were looking back at him. He was breathing. He was alive. Joe sobbed dryly, and watched as Nicky came back to him. Color returned to his face, his cheeks and lips filled out. Joe felt his chest swelling beneath his hand, his muscle mass returning. Nicky lifted his hand and gripped Joe’s forearm, squeezing it gently. He nodded.

“Sono qui,” he said, his voice returned to its former glory. He sat up and Joe met him halfway, locking into a deep, much-needed kiss. 

At length they broke apart, and helped each other to their feet. Nicky saw the others and offered a sad smile.

“What do you say we get you the fuck out of here?” Andy said.

“I would like that,” Nicky answered. He stretched, readjusting in his restored body. “More guards?”

“Probably.”

Nicky took a gun from a fallen guard.

“Merrick?”

“Penthouse.”

“Let’s go.”

“Are you, like… okay?” Nile asked. Nicky looked at her solemnly.

“Nile. Thank you. It’s good to see you.” He paused. “Let’s go.”

Together, Andy in front, they made their way back toward the main part of the floor. They saw nobody for a few minutes, so Joe decided to ask some of the questions he had.

“How did they find the safe house in France?”

Andy stopped. “Ask Booker.” She said at length. There was something hostile in her voice. Hostile and wounded. Joe turned on Book.

“Booker?” Everyone was looking at Booker now, except Andy.

“Joe, I… I was wrong.”

“What he means is he sold us out.” Andy said, still with her back to them.

“You what?” Nicky asked, stepping forward.

“Nicky, I thought- Copley said-“

“You set us up with Copley?” Joe demanded. “With Merrick? When?” Book opened his mouth, but Joe kept talking, cutting him off. “You handed Nicky and I over to them?”

“No-“

“Do you have any idea,” Anger was boiling inside Joe. He seemed suddenly taller, broader, his eyes darker. “Any idea what they did to us. To Nicky.” Nicky was a little behind Joe, jaw tight. He did not intervene.

“Joe, I thought-“ a shot went off, and Booker’s head snapped back, a fresh wound between his eyes. Nile gasped, watched him as he fell, then looked to see Joe with his gun raised. Booker stirred, and Joe threw down the gun and leapt on him, sending heavy punches into his face with both fists. Booker did little to resist. Blood covered Booker’s face and Joe’s hands, and more than once they heard Booker’s nose break. Nicky wasn’t watching, but wasn’t stopping it either.

“Enough!” Nile shouted at last, grabbing Joe’s shoulder and pulling him off. He staggered backwards, and Nicky put a hand on his back. Slowly, Booker stood, using the wall to help him. He touched his nose, feeling it healing itself.

Joe was seething. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we deserve a way out of this!”

“A way out?” Nicky repeated. “A way to die?”

“Yes,” Booker answered quietly.

“And because you want to die, to hell with what the rest of us want?”

“And you thought letting Nicky and I be tortured and killed repeatedly was the way to go?”

“If they can figure out what’s wrong with us, maybe they can figure out how to end it.”

“That’s the thing, Booker,” Nicky said. “There’s nothing wrong with us. And there’s no way to quit before it’s our time.”

“You don’t get to say that!” Booker snapped, pointing accusingly at Nicky. “You and Joe, you have always had each other. From the very beginning. You have never had to watch those you love die in front of you-“

“You think I have never felt love for anyone else?” Nicky demanded. “You think a life is whole just because it has one aspect that yours does not? I have had family, friends, brothers in arms die in front of me. You are not the only one who had a life before your death.”

“And since then?” Booker shot back. “Since then, I have had nothing. Only my grief.”

“Well now you have some more,” Joe spat.

The air bristled for a moment, before Nile spoke. “Let’s just get out of here,” she reasoned. “Stop Merrick. Get out of here. Deal with this later.”

Nobody answered, until at last Booker nodded. 

“Booker,” Nicky said softly. Booker turned to him, and was immediately met with Nicky’s fist hooking hard across his cheek bone. He reeled, hand on his face, eyes wide. He found his balance, spat blood, and opened his mouth wide, stretching his jaw. Without looking up, he nodded.

“Okay.” Nicky said. “Let’s go.”

Joe smirked. Andy, who had had her back to them this entire time, turned to face them. 

“What do you think? Oslo ’67?” Joe offered.

“No, Sãn Paulo ‘34” Andy decided. Joe nodded. “Nile’s with me.”

“What happened in Sãn Paulo in 1934?” Nile asked.

“1834.” Something sparkled over Andy’s eyes, something very close to excitement. “You’ll see.”


End file.
